The 2016-17 NCAA team from a +/- perspective

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

I went thru 29 games that we played in our NCAA tournament season, 2016-17. We played 6 non-conference games against quality opponents, 18 conference games, 3 Big Ten tournament games, 2 NCAA tournament games. Here are the results.

	% of mins	McIntosh	Law	Lumpkin	Pardon	Lindsey	Skelly	Brown	Taphorn	Benson
McIntosh	86.6	1.060	1.062	1.065	1.028	1.108	1.078	1.009	1.069	1.081
Law	82.6	1.062	1.039	1.050	1.002	1.081	1.048	0.998	1.054	1.017
Lumpkin	69.9	1.065	1.050	1.035	0.978	1.069	1.081	0.958	0.951	1.204
Pardon	67.6	1.028	1.002	0.978	1.002	1.017	1.016	0.967	1.024	-------
Lindsey	66.1	1.108	1.081	1.069	1.017	1.077	1.127	0.915	1.252	1.172
Skelly	41.6	1.078	1.048	1.081	1.016	1.127	1.043	0.917	1.158	0.879
Brown	33.5	1.009	0.998	0.958	0.967	0.915	0.917	0.960	0.982	0.910
Taphorn	29.6	1.069	1.054	0.951	1.024	1.252	1.158	0.982	1.063	1.051
Benson	16.1	1.081	1.017	1.204	-------	1.172	0.879	0.910	1.051	1.027
Ash	6.5	.739	0.689	0.804	0.719	0.824	0.750	0.649	1.171	0.491

The numbers, such as 1.052, are the ratio of pts scored / pts allowed for each two player combo. The numbers in bold are that same ratio for all the minutes played by each player. So when McIntosh played we outscored our opponents by 6%. When he was on the court with Lindsey, we outscored our opponents by 10.8%, etc. A performance rating of 1.0 is the league average.

I had always wondered why the team "fell apart" the next year. Only Taphorn and Lumpkin had graduated. That was about 10.5 points per game. Everybody else was back, with Anthony Gaines and Aaron Falzon stepping in to help. It seemed like we'd be pretty good in 2017-18... Not having a home court hurt somewhat, of course...

We had played 2016-17 with a 9 man "rotation", but the roles were fairly well-defined. Benson came off the bench for Pardon. Skelly primarily came in for Lumpkin. Brown would play (inadequately) for McIntosh or Lindsey. Taphorn mainly came in for Law or Lindsey. Ash didnt play often, but was clearly well below average for a Big Ten player. Other than Ash and Brown, the roster played at or above the Big Ten average.

We played well when Taphorn and Lindsey were on the court together.
When Benson entered games, the team did well if Lumpkin was playing too.
But when Benson was teamed with Skelly we played poorly.

In fact, our returning 5 man lineups (those that included neither Taphorn nor Lumpkin) had played less than 17% of the available minutes during the tournament season. We had been outscored 337-305 in about 193 minutes of game time. That was a bad sign.

Gaines and Falzon would need to play at or above the Big Ten average to replace Lumpkin and Taphorn...

 

[Kelly_32]

The three biggest things that hurt the 2017-2018 team were:

1. Loss of leadership and toughness after Lumpkin graduated. He was the glue that held everything together.

2. Jealousy.

3. No home court.

 

[hollandnucat]

The three biggest things that hurt the 2017-2018 team were:

1. Loss of leadership and toughness after Lumpkin graduated. He was the glue that held everything together.

2. Jealousy.

3. No home court.

I agree with both comments and would add Lumpkin was a very good defender. His defense and other non statistical contributions like screening were very valuable. He did the dirty work.

 

[SmellyCat]

Thanks for the numbers.

I feel like "1.024" undersells how important Pardon and Taphorn being on the floor together meant, at least for one glorious moment.

 

[GatoLouco]

I’m surprised at the % of minutes for Lindsey. Not so much for Pardon as fouls become an issue.

 

[SimpsonElmwood]

I’m surprised at the % of minutes for Lindsey. Not so much for Pardon as fouls become an issue.

Lindsey didn't play for 4 entire games. So his actual % of minutes when he was available was more like 75%

 

[PurpleWhiteBoy]

Lindsey missed 4 games as noted above. Pardon missed 4 games too.
Had they played all the games they both would have played about 77% of the possible minutes.

We were 1 and 3 without Lindsey, 3 and 1 without Pardon.

 

[NUcats92]

So I’ve been a lurker on the boards for years reading but didn’t sign up until this summer could someone go in depth about the jealousy factor I know it had to do with Macintosh and Lindsey but does anybody know why and how this occurred?